A me-too copycat startup like Spin who got kicked out of Seattle a year ago ( https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2022/05/13/city-announces-ne... ) doing it this way doesn't seem like a great endorsement to me.
You have to spend $$$ up front on thousands of vehicles that cost hundreds of dollars each, and your marginal revenue per ride ain't great. Putting a dent in your vehicle theft rate becomes a big deal fast.
Given that it's a routine sport in many cities, particularly those with bodies of water, to damage or destroy the scooters, it's imperative to make them as cheap as possible and as easy to repair as possible. Both conflict with stuff like custom boards or barriers to opening them up.
I've no idea about those scooters, but I won't be surprised if it's all behind some plastic panel held by few screws.
Besides, why would you want to steal them? You can grab new ones for a couple hundred dollars. Not worth the risk.
This was already all over the internet 4 years ago when Lime/Bird got started and were using off the shelf vehicles.
AFAIK, somehow going after scooter thefts in cities that often already had a grumpy relationship with them for GTA never really happened. And come on, there's a LOT of people for whom "a couple hundred dollars" is a plenty big enough score. Why would anyone steal a bike in that case either?
Given how little prosecution there is around bike theft, I doubt any police department or prosecutor is interested in spending the resources to prosecute the theft of an even cheaper mobility device.
